Space Business

May 03, 2010

[Kentucky Space readers, by the end of this week, I'll be blogging exclusively on the Kentucky
Space web site. Please note: If you're taking the blog feed, it has changed. Use this feed URL instead if you consume Kentucky Space in Google Reader or a client like FeedDemon or NetNewsWire.]

Presentations from the CubeSat Developer's Workshop at which Kentucky Space was prominently featured have been made available.

April 30, 2010

Kentucky Space is excited to have a presentation booth within the Kentucky BIO Pavilion at BIO in Chicago, IL. May 3rd – May 6th. The BIO International Convention is the largest global event for the biotechnology industry.

As part of the Kentucky Space Exomedicine research initiative, we are looking forward to meeting potential biotechnology partners interested in performing microgravity research on the International Space Station.

April 29, 2010

Recorded at the recent CubeSat Developer's Workshop, University of Kentucky graduate student Daniel Erb described CubeLabstm and the opportunities, based on this new standard, for low cost, repeatable microgravity research aboard the International Space Station.

April 26, 2010

Following the successful delivery of the first NanoRacks Platform on Shuttle Discovery earlier this month, the second such unit is manifested aboard Atlantis, designated STS-132, for May.

This photo shows the Astrotech payload processing facility at Port Canaveral, Fla., where workers dressed in "bunny suits" lift a cargo pallet into the Russian-built Mini-Research Module-1. The second platform is stowed in this module for flight.

The NanoRacks Platform powers up to 16 individual "CubeLabs," each of which can host microgravity research experiments. This standard method for doing microgravity research offers many more organizations an opportunity to do repeatable, cost efficient work in the bio-sciences, for example.

With regularly scheduled trips to the station, Kentucky Space is now working with organizations to put their experimental programs on the ISS.

What’s important to understand about this space research is that it isn’t about space. It’s about how earthly cells and molecules react and change in the micro-gravity environment of space. The economic and social implications of that research could be huge.

For example, most medical research about how humans react to micro-gravity has been focused on preventing harm to astronauts. But space could have beneficial effects on cells that might lead to more effective treatments for various diseases and conditions. Research already is being conducted on the space station to see how micro-gravity changes bacteria, which could lead to more effective vaccines for dangerous salmonella and staph infections.

'What could the applications of all of this be? The answer is, we don’t know, which is the foundation for all science,' Kimel said. 'Many scientific breakthroughs come when you’re looking for something else.'

April 08, 2010

Here is a terrific view from NASA television of the logistics module in Discovery's bay prior to being lifted out and attached to the International Space Station.

The hatch between the two was opened earlier this morning and supplies, including the NanoRacks platform and two CubeLabs, will soon be moved to their permanent places inside the station to begin work.

In brief presentations to the attendees at the first general session, Kris Kimel, president of the Kentucky Science and Technology Corporation, which is the managing partner for Kentucky Space, described how breakthroughs in science bring wealth, not just jobs. For a state like Kentucky, which leans heavily on well known and traditional industries, supporting this kind of innovation is critically important. Locations with concentrations of technical and human capital attract talent and investment. It's a virtuous cycle.

Later in the day, Kentucky Space students Jason Bratcher and Samir Rawashdeh detailed the work being done in Kentucky Space to develop a particular kind of talent and unique technologies during an extended poster display by organizations and companies doing cutting edge work in the commonwealth. With the recent launches of Frontier-1 and Monday's Discovery flight playing on a looping video nearby, passersby, who work with nano-technologies, and in the medical and material sciences themselves, were sufficiently impressed and many lingered to chat. The words "Kentucky" and "Space" next to each other have a certain shock value. But given its emphasis on building small spacecraft doing low cost, high value science, given the recent successes in launching these Kentucky-built craft, given the potential for standardized research in "plug and play" micro-labs built by students in Kentucky and set to be delivered by the now-docked Discovery (video below), that unfamiliarity may not last. Long known for its product on grassy field and beneath eastern mountain, Kentucky, instead, could become a place where talented people choose to stay and find discovery overhead.

April 02, 2010

After all the months of hard work, of the long days put in by everyone from the Houston team to Kentucky students, we are now in the countdown to the scheduled Monday launch of the NanoRacks Platform on board Shuttle Discovery, STS-131.

The platform is scheduled to be inserted permanently on board the International Space Station’s U.S. National Laboratory. The platform is for me — and for all of us — a work of elegant art. It represents the best of engineering principals: hardware that is functional and efficient. The platform will allow up to 16 experiments using the CubeSat form factor, a design and shape known to university and researchers world wide. We call them CubeLabs — named by Kris Kimel of Kentucky Space, our major partner.

Not that it was simple to develop this platform. It took the experience of our Houston team, the enthusiasm of students in Kentucky Space and the creativity of everyone involved. What is simple is the premise: that through use of standardized hardware, the cost of space station utilization will be dramatically lowered.

Our idea is already working, we have signed five commercial customers from the Valley Christian High School and Quest Institute to a new pharmaceutical crystal growth effort. That is really exciting for all of us.

But now comes the countdown — I’m heading down this weekend for the launch and to see old friends and begin my own new journey, to promote and market the commercial utilization of our section of the U.S. Space Station National Laboratory. I'm glad that Jim Lumpp from the University of Kentucky will be there. NanRack’s Mike Johnson is staying in Houston because this veteran of so many launches and space engineering projects is just too blasé to be at the Cape! Mike says he would have been there but it's Easter.

Countdowns are nervous - whether cargo ships or manned. This one more so for all of us at NanoRacks and Kentucky Space, but the mission of STS-131 is one heck of a way to launch a new business!

March 15, 2010

NASA TV broadcast this segment on its Wallops "SOCEM" mission, which has been posted to the UK Space Lab channel on YouTube.
Weather scrubbed last Thursday's launch. A new target launch date should be announced soon.

March 09, 2010

Aviation Week has published a terrific article on the Shuttle Discovery flight, STS-131, that will take the innovative microgravity research NanoRacks platform and two "Cubelabs" to the International Space Station next month.

The flight is more than a simple delivery of hardware built right here in Kentucky, exciting as that is, but "could be a harbinger of how the
U.S. hopes to do business in space in the years to come."

In addition to space station work, NanoRacks also also discussion with a other space companies about the use of the standard interface across several different space
vehicles, orbital and suborbital, "so the customer can concentrate on developing the experiment
or other hardware to be flown."

That's key. A focus on something other than the sheer technical challenge of getting to and staying in space represents an exciting new development in the commercialization of space. Working with NanoRacks, Kentucky Space is not only carving out a place for Kentucky-built and integrated suborbital and orbital payloads, but participating directly in the growth of space as a business frontier.

The managing partner for NanoRacks, Jeffrey Manber, also spoke on camera recently while in Lexington about the upcoming flight. Please check it out.